"One day, long long ago, before the white man came to America, a party of Sioux Indian warriors were out hunting. They had left their village far behind. Before they realized it, the group of braves found themselves alone in the bare and rocky badlands of the West. Suddenly the sky darkened…. There was a clap of thunder that shook the earth. Looking up in terror, the Indians thought they saw the shape of a giant bird falling to earth…."

Image: A thunderbird totem pole from Victoria, BC, Canada. License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.